Category Archives: Mobile Industry General

Mobile World Congress 2011 Summary

MWC 2011 was packed, they need two walking lanes in each direction, else allow the use of cattle prods to move people along who insist on doing the “smartphone prayer” (standing still, head bowed, staring at a screen) in the middle of doorways and walkways; it’s becoming a social problem.  There was no one theme […]

Africa Remains a Grossly Under-Estimated Market

A previous article introduced the “Broadcast, Interactive, Internet and Hybrid TV in Africa (TVA): Conference and Exhibition” (4-8 July 2011 at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa.)  Based on a number of courses I’ve given in the region over the past year on Hybrid TV, OTT (Over the Top) TV, IPTV, SDP (Service Deliver […]

Recent Workshops

A common theme on many of my projects is providing either at the start or end of a project an in-depth workshop. The focus of these workshops is varied: providing a fast-track understanding on new technologies or business models; separating hype from reality; explaining the unsaid agendas of the suppliers and service providers; providing a […]

Broadcast, Interactive, Internet and Hybrid TV in Africa (TVA): Conference and Exhibition

Based on a number of courses I’ve given in the region over the past year on Hybrid TV, OTT (Over the Top) TV, IPTV, SDP (Service Deliver Platform) and IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) I think the market has ignored the potential of Africa as it transitions to digital TV through 2011/2012. A new conference has […]

Funny as well as Sad Commentary on the State of our Industry

Verizon now carries the iPhone.  It runs on its CDMA network not LTE, which means voice and data do not work at the same time, in my experience that’s a relatively rare use-case, so not a big issue.  Facetime still works as voice and WiFi can work at the same time.  It also includes a […]

Environmental labeling for Mobile Apps

James Parton brought up an interesting idea around consumer labeling of mobile apps.  Its missing from the mobile eco-system.  For most home appliances there is Energy Star labeling.  Energy Star was first created as a United States government program during the early 1990s, later Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan and the European Union adopted […]

Telefonica launches BlueVia and Shares the Love with Developers

Building on their experience of O2 Litmus and Open Movilforum, Telefonica have launched BlueVia, see presentation below.  Critically, this is a world-first in the API exposure business because they are sharing the love with developers, between 10-20% of traffic revenue, and 50% of ad-revenue.  As you’d expect its web-centric with protocols and languages such as […]

End of Year Review, Awards and Predictions: Its been a quiet year in Telecoms, but not Elswhere…

Given all the activity in the technology industry: Sun disappearing into Oracle (aka The Borg); HP’s ex-CEO’s escapades with an actress (normally in the joke its a bishop) and then joining The Borg; Microsoft finally getting its PC OS right and making Office 2010 a pleasure to use; Twitter, Facebook and other’s crazy valuations; Wikileaks; […]

Where Next for Apple?

I’m often asked where Apple is going with respect to its devices and services.  A key to understanding Apple is in general they do not lead on new concepts; rather they copy, but copy much, much better.For example, they were not first to market with MP3 players, but when they did enter that market they […]

Broadband World Forum 2010 Day 1, October 26th, CNIT La Defense, Paris, France

Day 1 of the Broadband World Forum started with Keynotes from Matt Bross (Huawei), Johan Bergendahl (Ericsson) and Oliver Baujard (Deutsche Telekom). Matt’s session was entitled “Innovation @ the speed of life.”  Highlighting the problem operators have in focusing on phone numbers and addresses not people, and the issue of lack of customer trust in […]